Could the Australians have helped themselves better in India?

Could the Australians have helped themselves better in India?

Steve Waugh called it the final frontier but failed to realize his dreams of conquering it. After Bill Lawry’s victorious 3-1 series win in India, it took 35 years, 6 tours, 4 series losses and 5 captains (technically 6 in 2004-05) to alter the flow of the wind in 2004-05. For Michael Clarke, who had played a key role in the series win in 2004-05, it was baptism by fire in his still early days as captaincy.

Selection issues

Having had the luxury of watching another team tour India and defeat them recently, Australia chose to throw away the advantage of learning from England’s experiences and mistakes. The English management had quickly learned from their blunders in their 1^st test match and included the energetic Monty Panesar from the next test on, the decision starting to yield results in pounds right from the word go.

England demolished India in their own backyard and in rank turners in the next couple of tests, with Monty taking 16 and Graeme Swann taking 11 of the 40 Indian wickets that fell in Mumbai and Kolkata. With that, the fight in the Indian attack was extinguished and England gifted themselves with a well-fought series win in India after close to 3 decades.

On the other hand, while Australia made a strong statement by naming the playing eleven 2 days ahead of the 1^st test in Chennai, they made the fundamental error of not including enough specialist spinners in the team. Picking a squad with 4 spinners albeit relatively untested and playing with just one of them in India create an impression of a confused team management.

Moises Enqriques’ inclusion ahead of Mitchell Johnson was also questionable though he made himself useful with the bat in the series.

The 2^nd match saw it becoming a series of errors. While his performance commanded an additional spinner to be included to support him, Nathan Lyon saw himself being dropped for his less experienced counterparts. And Moises Enriques continued being favoured, ironically for his secondary role in the team, the primary role of bowling having been overlooked.

Batsman not learning from past mistakes 

While the Australian batsmen struggled to come to terms with the turn in the wicket and the vicious spin that the Indian trio of spinners managed in every match, some of the leading batsmen were guilty of a lack of application.

The Australian media has rightly slammed the batsmen for the manner of their dismissals.

Key among them was the top order of Shane Watson, David Warner, Ed Cowan and Phil Hughes. 

Much was expected of Shane Watson who was the leading scorer for Australia on their previous 2-match test series in 2010, scoring 271 runs in 4 innings at an average of 67.75. He had shown tremendous application in that tour especially in the 1^st match at Mohali, facing about 56 overs for his 126 runs in the 1^st innings. From being the highest scorer in the previous tour to being the lowest among all Australians, scoring less than even some some tailenders told the story of Watson’s contributions in the series.     

David Warner was guilty of throwing away his wicket every time in the name of aggression, Phil Hughes’ footwork against spinners seriously raised question marks about his preparedness for the tour and Ed Cowan’s refusal to learn from the manner of earlier dismissals deserved to be rebuked. That all these batsmen showed fleeting signs of form in the tour did not offer any respite to the Australian dressing room as none of them put their hands up to be counted as men when the team really needed them.

Shooting yourself in the foot

Languishing at 0-2 at the end of the 2^nd test in Hyderabad, the last news that was expected from a team on foreign shores is of a major disruption in the team’s spirits.

Much has been said about the ‘homework-gate’ of the Aussies. What was meant to be a penalty on the players seemed to be breaking their own walls in the face of a dominating opposition. Atleast 3 out of the 4 suspended players could have been the 1^st choice in the playing eleven for the match at Mohali.

Whatever was the tearing hurry to prove this one-upmanship in the middle of a tough and losing series could only be best explained by Mickey Arthur and Michael Clarke, both of whom put out their best defences to justify the decision.

While the Ashes is sometime away, it would do well for Australia to look into their team selection right down to the playing eleven and go with horses for courses. The physios would be working around the clock to get Michael Clarke and Ben Hilfenhaus back in action.

In the meantime, one only hopes to see the homework being applied on the field rather than being fielded as a joke.